I'm trying to make requests to google translate [http://google.com/translate_t] to translate words through a little ruby script. I can't get open-uri to work on URL's with accented characters (åéîòü etc). Just calling open() gives:
URI::InvalidURIError: bad URI(is not URI?): http://google.com/translate_t?langpair=en|fr&text=élire
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/uri/common.rb:432:in `split'
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/uri/common.rb:481:in `parse'
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/open-uri.rb:29:in `open'
from (irb):2
URI.encode()ing the url breaks the characters down into gunk (é => %C3%A9) which the translator doesn't understand.
I've tried fooling with $KCODE and switching to net/http, neither to any avail. Anyone have a hand to give me? I'll paste the code in full below in case anyone wants to see it.
-kjell
--- translate.rb ------------
#!/usr/local/bin/ruby
%w[rubygems open-uri hpricot active_support readline].each {|lib| require lib}
$KCODE = 'u'
# can't handle â/é/utf8 chars because open-uri won't let us have special chars in a query, nor will net/http
class GoogleTranslator
attr_reader :doc
@@langs = 'fr|en'
def initialize(text, langs=@@langs)
@text, @langs = text.chomp, langs
@doc = Hpricot(open(URI.encode("http://google.com/translate_t?langpair=#{@langs}&text=#{@text}")))
end
def result
@result ||= @doc.search('#result_box').inner_html
write_history_line
@result
end
def write_history_line # keep a file with all the translations, just for kicks.
`echo "#{"[#{@langs}]\t#{@text}\t\t->\t#{@result}"}" | cat >> '/Users/kjell/mess/2007/03/translation-history.txt'`
end
class << self
include Readline
def prompt; "[#{@@langs}] > "; end
def interact!
while text = readline(prompt, true)
(text =~ /lang: (.*)/) ? @@langs = $1 : puts("#{GoogleTranslator.new(text).result}") # either switch languages or spit out a translation
end
end
end
end
ARGV[0] ? puts(GoogleTranslator.new(*ARGV[0..1]).result) : GoogleTranslator.interact! # if called with an argument, translate that argument; else set up for interaction
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